EDITOR'S NOTE: Girl on the Moon is a fictional holiday series about an extraordinary woman and five people whose lives she touched and changed, set in Shreveport and Bossier City. It first published in 2016. This is the third installment in the six-part series

Dec. 31, 2016

Richard scuttled away from his assailant. The man towered over him looking just as angry as before he’d landed the punch. Richard checked his nose. Not broken, but sore and throbbing. Why, he thought, had “E.S.”— surely Elena Sanchez, his former girlfriend and the only woman he’d ever truly loved — asked him to this bridge on New Year’s Eve.

“Get up,” the attacker ordered.

Richard scrambled to his feet. Car beams flashed across the man’s face.

“Sam,” he spat out. “Still playing hero.”

The man Richard knew as Sam Fulton growled. He took a step forward, fist still at the ready.

“I’ve had to clean up the mess you’ve made time after time over the past 20 years,” Sam said. “It ends here.”

CLOSE

Girl on the Moon is a six-part fiction series by reporter Tiana Kennell. The series is about how one community member can affect the lives of many.
(Henrietta Wildsmith/The Times)

***

Dec. 30, 2016

“You’ll see our daughter when you come to your senses and move back to California! I’m not allowing you to take her down to some cotton fields to your hick family!”

Miriam Michaels-Fulton yelled through a phone. At her ex-husband.

Sam Fulton.

He sat in the Bossier City motel room, rubbing his temples. His grip tightened on his cell phone. He tried again to use a calm voice.

“Miriam, I was fine with you spending Christmas with her. Why can’t you spend just a few days out here so my family can see my daughter for the first time? I’ll pay the airfare for you and the nanny.”

“You can’t afford that. And it’s not about the money, anyway. It’s about you and your mid-life crisis decision to move back home and start a production company!”

“Why can’t you just believe in me for once?”

Sam slapped his head. How had he fallen into this cycle with Miriam — again? It never got him anywhere.

He thought about Elena. He’d asked her many times why she stayed stuck on Richard when their relationship clearly was hurting her. Richard was never fully there for her and hadn’t made any real effort to be in the life of their son. Her response: sometimes the universe throws two people together so hard they collide.

Sam mused. He and Miriam were more like disaster movie-level meteors speeding toward each other.

“She’s been my best friend for 20 years, as you know. We talk at night because we’re both night owls. That’s when she’s up sewing and painting and when I’m up writing.”

Sam Fulton

Six years before, Sam was a 32-year-old writer making a name for himself in Hollywood. He was confident, put together and happy. He’d been brought on to write for a new ABC television murder mystery drama, “Infamy.” Miriam Michaels was the leading actress. Two years later, she became Sam’s wife.

The drama’s ratings were climbing. The show received Emmys and many accolades, and Miriam was rumored to be in consideration for a new Michael Bay movie.

Perhaps she’d been right. “Infamy” was put on hiatus while Miriam took maternity leave. By the time she returned, studio execs were testing a new law drama show, “Burden of Proof,” in the “Infamy” time slot — a mark of death. Ratings for “Infamy” slipped. Then, several episodes into the season, the show was canceled. Miriam blamed Sam.

Miriam was a Hollywood “diva,” as Elena called her, which had been fine with Sam until her attitude was directed at him. With their marriage slipping, Sam suggested counseling or individual therapy or a vacation or time with his family in north Bossier City.

“You only want to go back to that town because of your mistress!” Miriam yelled.

Elena. It wasn’t the first time Miriam had referred to her in that way.

Miriam couldn’t understand why Sam sometimes spent hours at night in “online video dates” with that woman from his past. No faithful married man did that. He must be cheating.

“She’s not my mistress, Miriam,” Sam said. “She’s been my best friend for 20 years, as you know. We talk at night because we’re both night owls. That’s when she’s up sewing and painting and when I’m up writing. We help each other on projects. You know that.”

“I should be helping you! I’m your wife!”

“Then read my script. Read it and help me finish it.”

He pulled out a folder with the screenplay he’d planned to pitch to a production company as soon as it was completed. She snatched it.

A week later, Sam found the script tucked into a stack of magazines in the recycling pile. He wanted to feel surprise or even hurt, but felt neither. It was a test he’d known she would fail.

What Miriam didn’t understand was that his bond with Elena was brother-sister, not lover-lover. He was the godfather to her son, Justin. And although he hadn’t been back to Shreveport in more than a decade because of his career, Elena understood he’d always be there for her.

Sam had met Elena as a freshman at Centenary College while dating her roommate. Although that relationship soon fizzled, the friendship between Sam and Elena ignited — although never quite romantically.

They were instant best friends, and their natural chemistry was strengthened by their shared passion for movies. Elena wanted to dress the movie stars. Sam yearned to write the stories and bring them to life on screen.

Elena acted as his unofficial literary agent and film critic. She told him when an idea stunk and encouraged him when he hit bouts of writer’s block. He was the only person she allowed to see her design sketches and unfinished paintings. Until Richard.

After college, Sam began traveling to work on the production sets of television shows and movies, and he eventually moved to California. Now in separate cities, it was harder to watch movies together, so they began to indulge their shared passion via video chats. They cued up movies to begin at the same time. It was almost like before.

Photo illustration(Photo: Henrietta Wildsmith/The Times)

He rarely visited Shreveport, and as a single parent, she was too busy raising Justin to fly out to California. Plus, she’d picked up more responsibility at Gossamer Gowns. The owner, Annie Lattimore, allowed Elena to sell her formal gowns and headpieces at the boutique. And since Mrs. Lattimore had grown older and physically infirm, she left most of the work to Elena.

Then Mrs. Lattimore died, and Elena inherited Gossamer Gowns. Elena continued selling her dresses and added her paintings in the boutique as a part of the decor. Soon customers were asking to buy her art, as well. Between her painting and fashion designs, she was starting to make a name for herself around the Ark-La-Tex.

Meanwhile, her son was sprouting fast. And Richard was being … Richard.

Sam had disliked Richard from the start. He’d seen the type before. Although Richard may have true feelings for Elena, he’d never marry her. She didn’t fit the plan for his life.

But Sam didn’t press Elena about Richard, at least not with any energy. If he pressed too hard, he’d risk pushing her away. He valued their friendship too much.

Then Elena told Sam she was pregnant — with Richard’s baby. Sam promised to pummel Richard and make him do right by her. Elena said no. She’d handle it, she said. Richard would do right in his own time.

And Richard had done so, in his way. Two months after the disastrous dinner with his parents, Richard showed up on Elena’s doorstep and saw that she was pregnant. He begged for forgiveness and vowed to provide for her and their child.

Sam found himself, rather than Richard, taking Elena to doctor appointments, getting her makeup class assignments from professors and running errands to prepare for the birth. Though Sam was happy to be there for Elena, these were things the father should have been doing. He resented Richard.

Sam more than earned his status as godfather by the time Justin was born, Elena had him from a hospital bed while holding the newborn. Richard showed up soon after the birth with a teddy bear and flowers.

Soon, Richard confronted his parents and told them about Elena and Justin. His mother blackballed him within the family and at work. She called Richard’s boss — his father’s best friend — and got her son suspended until further notice. It took only a few months without his car, trust fund and family privilege before Richard told Elena he had to return to his family.

Girl on the Moon is a 2016 fictional holiday series by Tiana Kennell.(Photo: Megan Steenson, USA Today Network)

“I can’t take care of you and our son if I don’t have a penny to my name,” he said.

In time, he married a daughter of a family friend. He established a private trust for Elena and their son, sneaking money into it when possible. He continued to see Elena, although only occasionally.

Sam couldn’t respect a person who couldn’t stand up to his parents over the woman he loved and his child. Sending monthly checks and visiting occasionally weren’t enough. And when Justin was older and more aware, Elena stopped everything.

“I don’t want to deny you a relationship with your son,” she told Richard. “But what kind of example and life is it for him if he can’t fully have his father? You have to choose.”

Sam had watched this drama, pained but powerless to intervene. He vowed never to be that kind of man or father. When Miriam served divorce papers on him and said she wanted full custody of their toddler daughter, Lillian, he had vowed to not let Miriam fade him out of his daughter’s life.

After the split, Sam rented a California beach cottage that belonged to a film industry friend. But after a fourth studio rejected his script, he began planning to launch his own production company — in Shreveport.

He had returned to the city only two months earlier, holed up in the motel temporarily to focus on writing and building the company. Soon, he and Elena resumed their movie get-togethers. It was so much better in person. He’d missed her.

Within weeks, though, he’d become so busy with his family drama and the meetings that he’d lost track of how much time had passed. Then came that December day when the messenger handed him that invitation. From “E.S.”

For the fourth time in two days, he dialed Elena’s phone. Again, he was sent to voicemail.